Rudy No Go

by digby

I’ve seen some spectacular political flameouts in my day, but this is one for the books:

Ex-New York mayor Rudy Giuliani took a further hit on Sunday, when a poll showed he dropped to fourth place ahead of Florida’s Republican primary, which looked set to be a tight race between John McCain and Mitt Romney.

And, just days ahead of Tuesday’s voting, McCain got a major boost with the endorsement of Florida Governor Charlie Crist, who enjoys popularity levels of around 70 percent in the state.

The Arizona senator and Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, both scored 30 percent of the vote in a Zogby poll out on Sunday.

Giuliani got only 13 percent, which placed him one percentage point behind former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

Now we know from hard experience that it’s possible that the polls are wrong, but there’s really no reason to believe that Rudy is going to pull this out.

What happened? My suspicion is that his absurd braggadocio about everything 9/11 just finally became too much. He was a mayor. He wasn’t Patton or Churchill and the only thing he did was wander around on the ground and hold press conferences, which was only meaningful by comparison to the president who ran around the first day like he didn’t know what to do.

His “foreign policy” was completely nuts, even in by the standards of the Republican nut grove. He sounds like he’s foaming at the mouth when he talks about “Islamofascism” and “staying on offense.” There’s just something a little bit crazy in his eyes that probably makes even right wingers worry that his aggressiveness might be a bit much. His domestic policy is even worse. He goes around saying stuff like “We’ve got to let them take the risk–do they want to be covered? Do they want health insurance? Because ultimately, if they don’t, well, then, they may not be taken care of.”

Mostly, though, I think it’s that he has virtually no appealing positive attributes. He’s not funny, he’s not compassionate, he’s not somebody you’d want to have a beer with and with all of his gloating and bragging, he’s just an unpleasant, creepy fellow. I honestly can’t figure out why New Yorkers elected him except that he must have been better than the other guy.

It was always going to be hard for twice divorced, pro-choice serial adulterer from New York City to win the nomination. He would have had to have at least been a flamboyant war hero to make all that national security stuff scan. But he was a mayor, not a general, and everything that has come out of his mouthabout 9/11 and “staying on offense” sounds like nothing so much as some sad small man trying to puff himself up to look bigger than he is. New York City doesn’t have an army and this guy tries to make it sound like he led the invasion of Normandy. He’s ridiculous.

How much money has Rudy blown to get absolutely nowhere? The latest fundraising reports are due January 30th. But as of last September 30th he had spent 30 million dollars.

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